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Long Live the King Artist:  Narnia Label:  Nuclear Blast Length:  10 tracks	Sample Living Water

These Swedes sound like they've been holed up in their castle for decades, honing their particular craft to perfection.  Said craft being slow to mid-tempo classic metal.   Clean, smooth guitars; epic keyboards; repetitive hooks and echoing background vocals.  The vocals aren't too high or too dramatic.  They strip down to just drums and lead guitar at times, with the bass and keyboards faint in the mix.  It's actually quite relaxing.  In the early '80s, this type of music for some strange reason struck fear into the hearts of fundamentalists and made kids feel rebellious.  In today's musical climate, it's about as safe sounding as a kitten's meow. 

The repetitive choruses house lyrics mostly of the blatant Christian variety, with themes of searching,
journeying, and hoping woven throughout almost every song.  It's unfortunate that there's none of the
subtlety or symbolism of C.S. Lewis, the author who created the metaphorical fantasy world they're named
after, but being direct is all part of the pattern Narnia copies meticulously. 

Narnia obviously have strong enough technical musicianship to get on Nuclear Blast, and the label has supplied pristine production values.  With their funny Swedish pronunciations of English (for example, "I breathe your spirit/I breathe your love" becomes "I breed..."), Narnia stand alone as a perfect, sterilized replica of an extinct species.  They're formulaic, but more than skilled enough to sate the thirst of die-hard formula drinkers or newbies too young to remember and despise early '80s metal.  If you want good classic metal with Christian lyrics, this is really all you've got.

Josh Spencer          9/30/00